Burning Up Again
by Tentative Steps
Summary: "She, too, tastes of cherries and naughtiness, and it's all he can do not to scoop her up in his arms there and then." It's three years since Sam resigned her comission to marry Pete when she bumps in to Jack at a conference. A little sexy, a little naughty, a LOT shippy.
1. Now you've come and gone

**Author's note: this is the first time I've dabbled in fanfiction in about five years, and this story is un-beta'd, so please be gentle with me. If you are, I promise my characters won't be ;)**

**But in all seriousness, this is the start of what I intend to be a longer story. If you like what you read, please review and I'll see if I can't come up with more.**

**Rated "M" for frequent swearing and sexual content. Nothing graphic. **

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**Burning Up Again**

_Washington DC. D-Day._

It's half-past midnight and she's standing on his doorstep in the pouring rain. It couldn't be more like a scene from a bad movie if it tried: her hair is wet and plastered to her forehead, and he doesn't think he's ever seen her eyes look this tired before. She's obviously driven all the way from Colorado, stopping for gas and coffee, because her clothes are rumpled and stained, and the way she's parked her car can only be described as erratic.

He raises an eyebrow, wondering if she's about to offer any explanation for her sudden appearance. When none is forthcoming, he invites her in, guides her to the couch, and shoves a double whiskey in her hands. He sits on the chair opposite her, watching her drink and shake, tears silently streaming down her face, and waits.

Eventually, after about forty-five minutes, she looks up at him. Her eyes are half-empty, half-hopeful, like she can't decide whether to be ashamed or excited. The tears have stuck firmly to her face, now, creating gleaming tracks down her cheeks, which are slightly red from exhaustion and alcohol.

"Are you going to tell me what's happening, Sam?" he can't help himself but ask. "You've been driving for what? Twenty-six hours?"

She shakes her head, a little ashamed, and laughs: "Less. I speed when I'm angry."

_Don't I know it,_ he thinks to himself, wondering what can have gotten her this riled: "So," he asks, "business, or pleasure?"

A few moments pass in awkward silence as she ponders the right words. Eventually, she decides that honesty is the best policy, and sighs, talking to the remains of her whiskey rather than him:

"Pete knows. He kicked me out."

Huh.

* * *

_Chicago, Illinois. T-minus five years, two months and four days._

He wondered if he'd see her here: a conference about wormhole physics was exactly up her alley, and even though he was half expecting her to be here, it still takes his breath away.

He hasn't seen her since she resigned her commission and moved to Denver to play happy families with the cop. He honestly didn't really expect her to go through with it in the first place, but her father's death had hit her hard and she needed to cling to her 2.5 children and her white picket fence.

So, she ignored her father's advice, ignored her heart, and ignored everything sensible everyone was telling her, and she married the bastard. She upped and left, and he thought he'd vaguely heard somewhere that she was splitting her time between the Air Force Academy and the University of Colorado. It was a hell of a commute, and a hell of a life, and he couldn't imagine how she could possibly be happy. The Sam Carter he knew wasn't happy unless she was still in her lab at stupid o'clock in the morning, forgetting to eat, and definitely not capable of looking after herself, let alone another human being – unless she was in the field, in which case, you knew she would always, always, always have your back.

Until she didn't.

Until she was gone.

And yet, here she was. Dr. Samantha Shanahan, all long blonde hair and legs and bright blue eyes glittering as she took to the stage to give her presentation. His breath hitches in his throat as he sees her, looking like someone else entirely and yet exactly the same. She's wearing a skirt suit, the blouse polka-dotted with a bow, and those shoes… oh, man, those shoes.

She's never seen anything like it, let alone on his former second, and he doesn't know quite how he's supposed to sit there and listen to her theorise about things he knows she's seen firsthand without standing up and walking out… or, a rebellious part of his brain suggests, swiping her off the stage and carrying her back to his bedroom. Oh, sweet Jesus, the irony.

* * *

He makes it through the presentation, somehow, and breathes deeply as he pulls himself up to a barstool that night, his head and his heart a mess. If he'd known that he'd see her here, he'd have sent Joseph. Or Alison. Or anyone fucking else. It feels like losing her again, knowing that she's probably barely feet away, playing happy families with her husband in her pretty, girly clothes and her heels. He bets there's a baby. Or two. It's been what? Three years now, at least. Plenty of time to pop a few pretty, blonde haired geniuses out in between "theorising". Dr. Samantha Shanahan, rising star of the academic community, is most definitely not Lieutenant Colonel Sam Carter of the USAF.

He orders a beer, and then another, and pretends not to hear the people sitting next to him who are trying to engage him in conversation. He's not here to talk physics, after all. He's here to watch – to make sure that no one gets too close to the truth, and that no one really knows what's going on under Cheyenne Mountain – and the irony is that the one person who really knows and really understands is presenting and he's not sure he can bring himself to inform the president.

He's just about polishing off his second whiskey of the night, nibbling idly on bar peanuts, when she sits down next to him, seemingly without even realising it. She has to have noticed it's him. He's sitting there in his fucking dress blues with the two little stars gleaming on his shoulders, and although he will admit that he's a fair bit greyer than he was when he last saw her, he thought she'd at least have noticed.

She orders a beer, dark, and he raises his eyebrows at the barman. White picket fences and 2.5 kids she is not. Pretending to look at someone behind her, he takes a sideways glance and notices that she's changed out of the feminine attire she wore earlier. She's wearing tight jeans, combat-style boots, and leather jacket and a little t-shirt, with her hair scraped back in a ponytail. She looks, quite frankly, like every one of his fantasies from years ago has come true, and he wonders how long he can sit there without her making the connection.

The barman passes over her beer, still in the bottle, and she absent-mindedly reaches over the grab a handful of his peanuts. Their hands brush, and she glances up at him, about to apologise.

"FUCK!" she shouts.

And that's when she falls of her stool.

Leaning down to offer her a hand, he raises one eyebrow and says, "it's nice to see you again, too, Colonel."

As she pulls herself back on to the stool, he thinks he sees her flush. "I think you know I'm not a Colonel anymore, General," she mutters, taking a swig of beer and trying very hard not to catch his eye.

"Ah." He says, feigning ignorance. "My mistake. Well, then, _Dr. Shanahan_, it's nice to see you again."

"Mmm." She intones, thoughtfully. "What the hell are you doing here, Jack?"

"I'm here for the conference," he tells her, as though it's the obvious answer.

"Right," she nods. "I forgot that you're one of the world's leading experts on wormhole theory."

"Ah, Carter, but you forget: I have a lot more practical experience with wormholes than most people here." He catches himself, and adds "present company excepted, of course."

"Don't call me that." She's whispering, her head down, fiddling with her wedding ring as though she's a little bit ashamed.

"Carter?" he asks.

"Yes."

"Well then, what do I call you?"

When she doesn't respond, swigging her beer and fiddling with her rings alternately, he continues: "Because I don't think I can call you Dr. Shanahan. And I spent years trying not to call you 'Sam', so it seems a bit… odd."

"Sam's good." She says. "Most people call me Samantha these days."

"Ah. Yes. I know how much you loved that name." He clinks his bottle against hers: "well, then, Sam: here's to the good old days, and to wormhole theory."

"To wormhole theory," she echoes, the first hint of a smile crawling on to her lips. She finishes her beer and pushes the bottle towards the other side of the bar.

"Can I get you something else?" he asks. He's a little conflicted: he's spent years trying to forget this woman, trying to pretend that there really wasn't anything between them, and yet here she is – married to another man, but more intoxicating than ever. He wonders if she knows what kind of an affect she's having on him.

He glances over at her as he waits for her answer, and notices the exact same feelings flash across her face: she's regretful, remorseful, excited and confused. She's conflicted and concerned and she feels really fucking guilty about what she's about to say, but he has that look on his face – that _Jack_ look on his face – and she knows she's completely and utterly doomed.

"Sure." She nods. "I'll have another beer."

* * *

He walks her back to her room when the hotel barman finally kicks them out at four am. He's glad to see that despite her new hair and her new name she can still drink him under the table, and he has to fight the urge to kiss her as they say goodnight.

He's walking back down the corridor feeling like he might need the coldest shower he's ever had when he hears her call his name: "Jack?"

He turns, and sees her head poking out the bedroom door. He doesn't need to respond: they've already realised that they can still have a whole conversation without words. Some things, it seems, really never change.

"Are you staying for the conference tomorrow?"

He hadn't been intending to. Tomorrow is about something else entirely – something that has no bearing on national security in the slightest, and something which sounds so hellishly complicated that he can't even remember what it's called – but something deep inside of him tells him to tell her "yes".

"Do you feel like getting dinner tomorrow?" she asks. And then, by way of explanation, she adds "it gets lonely on the conference circuit."

_I'll be it does_, he thinks to himself, but he nods.

"Great!" she says. "Pick me up at seven?"

* * *

At quarter to seven the next evening, he's sitting on his bed, panicking down the phone at Cassie. He couldn't think of who else to call, and he feels like he's already gotten himself in too deep. But, as Cassie keeps insisting, it's only dinner – dinner between two old friends, who might once have been something more, and who just want to catch up and talk about the good old days, when they used to save the world on a daily basis.

He eventually acquiesces, and asks her what he should be wearing. She instructs him to go for tidy, smart, but casual: "Jeans, nice shoes, a nice sweater, and for the love of God, Jack, please comb your hair. And offer to pay."

"This isn't a date, Cass!" he admonishes, but he knows she's right. He knows there's bad blood between them and he wants to do his best to make up.

Checking himself in the mirror before he leaves his room, he hops in the elevator and heads up to her floor. She's waiting for him, because he knocks and the door opens straight away.

Just for a change, she takes his breath away. She's wearing the same tight blue jeans and leather jacket as yesterday, but this time she has a sort of fancy (he can't think of any other way to describe it) pale blue top on, and black high heels. Her legs go on forever, and he has to remind himself that she's married to pull his eyes away from her legs and up to her eyes.

"Hi," she grins, and his heart does a back-flip. He hasn't felt this alive in years.

"Hi," he replies. "Did you want to go anywhere in particular?"

"Actually," she tells him, shutting her door and pulling him back towards the elevator, "I've booked a cab and a table. I come up here to the university a fair bit, so I know the area. I hope that's OK."

"Sure," he says, feeling like this night can only go badly.

Dinner is wonderful. She's booked a secluded little booth in a homey Italian place, and she knows just what to say to make his cogs whir like they haven't in years. As soon as they sit down, she's ordering a bottle of red, something Italian he's never heard of before, and when the waiter pours a glass and he takes a sip it tastes like cherries and bad behaviour.

As they eat – and drink, oh how they drink – he teases a few details about her life out of her. She is, indeed, still married to the cop, but the look on her face says she finds her life boring and her marriage more so. She's teaching at the Air Force Academy mostly, these days, with a few days a month at the university in Denver, and a few days every six months or so up at Northwestern. She's highly sought after, it turns out, and the one thing that seems like it's going well in her life is her work.

She doesn't have any kids, but she does have a dog, and another motorbike, and not too many friends. She hasn't seen Cassie in years because Cass can't stand Pete, and she misses her something rotten. She drinks a lot to distract herself, and she swears like a trouper "because it bothers him so much, but he can't explain why so he can't justify asking me not to".

She's like a hurricane in human form these days, and she is a feast for the eyes.

The conversation flows easily. They find themselves crying with laughter over Apophis and his antics. "I always thought he seemed a bit gay!" she giggles. "Big, gay Apophis!"

"Big, gay Apophis!" he guffaws. It shouldn't be funny, but it is.

Eventually, after one and a half bottles of wine, and a glass of whiskey each, they stumble into a cab and try very, very hard to resist the urge to tear each other's clothes off. Her hands trace up and down his thighs, and he can feel parts of his anatomy acting against his better judgement. She notices too, and runs her hand over his crotch, her eyebrows raised. He guesses she doesn't get a whole lot of pleasure these days.

The drive back to the hotel is long, and part of him wonders if she planned it that way. Her breath is heavy, and her hands are running all over him, and he's clinging to the seat to stop him doing something he shouldn't.

Eventually, when she realises that he's not going to make the first move, she leans over and kisses him, long and sweet. She, too, tastes of cherries and naughtiness, and it's all he can do not to scoop her up in his arms there and then and fuck her.

Breathing heavily, he turns to her, his eyes on fire: "you're married, Sam. What the hell are you doing?"

She looks at him, staring hard into his eyes, and he can see that she's weighing up the consequences of his words. After a moment that feels like a lifetime, she shrugs, unbuckles her seatbelt, and climbs on to his lap, pulling his lips to hers. She _has_ to have him. After all these years – after so much time in a boring marriage devoid of sex and excitement – she _has to._

* * *

When he wakes up in the morning, he's alone in her hotel room. There's a note on the pillow beside him that with her phone number and the ominous words "we should do this again".

* * *

**R&amp;R? And shall I write more?**


	2. Pulling me back in to the flames

**Author's note: thank you to everyone who took the time to review the last chapter. After so long away fron fanfiction, I'm a little overwhelmed by the response. I'm so glad you like the premise of this story! **

**Normally, updates won't be this fast (gotta go to work, y'all), but just as a special gift, here's part 2.**

**By the way, in case anyone's wondering, the title is taken from 'Georgia' by Vance Joy:**

**"And I could easily lose my mind / The way you kiss me will work each time / Pulling me back into the flames / And I'm burning up again / I'm burning up **

** And I, I never understood what was at stake / I never thought your love was worth it's wait / Well now you've come and gone / I finally worked it out"**

* * *

_Washington DC. T-minus five years, one month and twenty-nine days._

Jack sits at his desk staring at the note she left him in bed that morning – the only proof he has that the whole thing wasn't hallucinated. There's no doubt in his mind that the handwriting is Carter's. It's a little loopier than it used to be when he last knew her, but it is definitely hers.

"We should do this again," she wrote. Was she serious? Did she mean it? And why in the name of all that is holy had she provided him with a land-line number?!

He picks up the phone, hoping he's about to dial her office and not her house. The dialling tone goes on and on, ominously, and for a moment he thinks he's going straight to voicemail. Eventually, though, someone picks up. It's a man's voice, and one he just barely recognises:

"Shanahan residence, Pete speaking."

Oh _fuck_.

Jack takes a second to gather his thoughts, and then speaks, hoping that Pete won't recognise his voice. He half considers putting on an accent, but that idea is so laughable that it hurts. He already feels like a teenager, sneaking around behind his parents' backs.

"Hi, Pete. I'm, uh, calling to speak to Samantha." He uses her full name, the name Pete calls her, because Jack O'Neill would never call her that, and it feels less suspicious. "Is she around?"

"Uh," Pete stumbles, "no. She's out right now. Can I take a message?"

"Yes." Jack is resolute despite not really knowing what to say next. His brain races. He needs to speak to her again. He needs Pete not to know. He doesn't know why this bit is so important – arguably, Sam is the one who instigated this whole thing – but it feels like it should be.

"Could you tell her that Jonah called?" Jack asks, having hit on a brain wave. "It's something about, the, uh, Thera Theory," he adds, to make sure that she remembers who Jonah is. He gives Pete his number, and hangs up, feeling more like a naughty school boy than he has in years.

* * *

It's three days later when she calls him back. He's at home on the couch with a take-away, and she's on the long drive back from the Academy to Denver. She sounds more relaxed and happy than he thinks he's ever heard her, and although it's a little unnerving, he feels a bit proud to be part of the reason for that.

"So, last week was fun," he starts, awkwardly.

"It was. Oh, God, Jack, it was…" She breathes out loudly, sounding like she's on the edge of some fantasy precipice, and then adds, "the most fun I've had in ages, actually."

It takes everything Jack has not to question Pete's manhood, or suggest that perhaps her marriage isn't as satisfying as it should be.

"Which, incidentally," she continues, "is why I've called. I have a conference in DC next weekend."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah…"

She sounds uncertain, like she might be making the whole thing up, and it suddenly dawns on him that there's a strong chance that she is. He doesn't know too much about the universities in or around DC, but he's pretty sure none of them have strong theoretical astrophysics departments. Or whatever it is she does these days.

"Well, that's lucky, isn't it?" he asks, a smile tickling his lips.

"Yeah. And, uh, well, I know this is really cheeky, but…"

She is beginning to panic a little now, and she knows it. She's not sure whether Jack is in this for the long haul, or if last week was just a blip – a lapse in judgement, fuelled by alcohol and long-supressed passion. She worries that he will tell her he can't do this; that they had their chance. She worries that he will send her running back to her boring little life, the way she knows he should, and that he will tell her exactly where to stick her conference.

But he doesn't. He beats her to it in the end.

"So if you're coming to DC, will you be needing a place to stay?" he asks, trying to sound casual. His heart is racing. Last week, he felt so _alive_.

"Well I was planning on booking a hotel, but…"

He cuts her off: "Sam Carter does not stay in hotels when she's in Washington."

"I'm not Sam Carter anymore," she reminds him, quietly. Her heart sinks. He's playing at fantasies. This isn't real.

"You'll always be Sam Carter to me, Colonel."

* * *

He picks her up from the airport a little after six on Friday night, and drives her back to his house, on the outskirts of Silver Spring. He tried to pick somewhere that had a little bit of a feel of the outdoors to it, so that when he wasn't in the office he could kid himself that he was off-world, enjoying the company of his team over crappy rations and moonshine.

He pushes open the door and she's surprised to see that it looks a lot like his old place, back in Colorado Springs. Same furniture, same photos, same everything – right down to the cutlery in the drawers. It's a bit like stepping back in time, except that then it was the frat regs that meant they shouldn't be together.

Funny how frat regs turned out to be a more effective contraceptive than her marriage to another man.

He shows her upstairs and tells her to dump her bag where she likes. He's not sure whether she's going to keep up appearances and sleep in the guest room, or if he's in for some kind of romance novel night of passion. He'll let her decide. She can set the pace. She's the one who really has a lot to answer for if anything does happen – he's just 'the other man'.

Eventually, after an awkward fifteen minutes trying to work out what to do, he grabs her a beer and they sit down on the couch and start chatting like they used to when this couch was in another house, a lifetime ago. After a while, she orders a takeout from some little place she used to know when she lived here, and they eat Chinese and reminisce and drink.

It's getting late by the time she confesses that she doesn't really have a conference to go to at all. "I just wanted to see you again," she tells him. "I hope that's not weird."

"Sam…" he breathes, and she leans over to kiss him. She's decided that she was far too cautious in her past life, and that this time she's throwing caution to the wind. This time, she's acting on impulse, behind her husband's back, and if Jack doesn't like it, he's just going to have to shut up and deal with it.

* * *

They wake up as the sun rises, entangled in each other's limbs on the couch. It's not been a comfortable night's sleep, but neither of them minds because last night was sensational. Jack rubs the sleep from his eyes, and feels like he's twenty-five again as he extracts himself from Sam's embrace and wanders towards the coffee machine.

He makes eggs for breakfast as she slowly comes around to the concept of existence. She never was great with mornings, which always made him laugh, because she never was good with actually sleeping in the first place, either.

They read the papers over breakfast at his kitchen table, and suddenly life feels oddly domestic. He asks her to pass the salt, and glancing up, it strikes him that she fits in his kitchen, in his house, in his life, in a way that no other woman ever has. She belongs here, and it kills him to know that she will be on a flight back to Colorado Springs tomorrow night and that they'll have to pretend that this whole thing never happened in the first place.

She catches him looking and smiles, reaching out to take his hand. He knows, in that gesture, that she feels the same thing.

* * *

They spend a long weekend feeling like love-sick twenty-somethings, taking their time over everything and seldom getting dressed. They take long, hot baths together with sparkling wine and don't eat anything but take-out. They kiss slowly and deliciously, as though they have all the time in the world, trying to ignore the aching feeling in their chests which reminds them that they do not.

And, they make love. There is no pretence here: this is not fucking, or having sex, or any of the other euphemisms they have used with people they have slept with in the past. This is love, pure and simple. Over this, too, they take their time – learning each other's bodies and what makes them tick. Unlike the last time, which was hot and desperate, this is gentle, delicate, slow and meaningful. This is a physical connection between two people who are, at the end of the day, soulmates, whatever your definition of the word.

But, all good things must come to an end, and on Sunday evening they make the slow, reluctant drive back to the airport. Every time the traffic lights turn to red, he leans over and kisses her. He drives one handed, his fingers trailing up and down her thighs, and she sighs, knowing that she is returning to Colorado, to a passionless marriage and a passionless life.

When they pull up, he decides that it's best that he doesn't walk with her to the gate because people know both of them in this city and they are playing a game of sneaking around behind her husband's back. The last thing they need is General-someone-or-other to see General O'Neill kissing Colonel Carter in the departures lounge – however much fun that might be.

And so, he helps her lift her bags out of the trunk and pulls her in to his warm embrace in the parking lot, wondering how long it will be before they can do this again. She breathes a deep, chesty sigh, her head nestling in to his neck, and feels regretful for the life she never had and for the sense of obligation she feels towards Pete and their future children.

After a minute that feels like eternity, he leans down and kisses her with such passion and fervour that she wonders for a second if they'll be arrested for indecency. The message he conveys with his kiss is clear: no one has ever loved anyone as much as he loves her, and he will be waiting. However long it takes.

* * *

**Reviews are always lovely :)**


	3. Author's Note

**Author's Note**

Hi, readers,

First things first – this is not a chapter. It's a note to explain why I've not posted in so long.

When I started writing this story, I loved it and I loved writing again. But, after a few days I started to receive some very abusive reviews, the worst of which have been deleted. It seems that people are not OK with the concept of a story about cheating… even when they don't know the context.

The fact that people have been calling me a slut, and slut-shaming my characters, made me stop writing. Waking up to messages from people you've never met that say things like that is fucking horrible, and I won't tolerate it.

However, in the past few days I've also received some very lovely, kind reviews and PMs asking me to continue, and it's made me rethink.

I love this story. Many of you love this story. And so, when life next gives me a chance, I'll write on.

In the meantime, though, I would like to make it very clear that I will write exactly what I like in this story, and that if extra-marital affairs offend you, you should probably click the little "x" in the corner and be done with it.

I will not condone slut-shaming. I will not condone people saying things like that about me or my characters.

And rest assured, if it happens again, I'll be reporting those who act that way.

Thanks for sticking by me. I'll write soon. xx


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